


Come Inside

by oorsprong



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Disturbing Themes, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Evil, Fear, Introspection, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-01
Updated: 2017-03-01
Packaged: 2018-09-27 15:08:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,185
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10027346
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oorsprong/pseuds/oorsprong
Summary: Hux survives the Supreme Leader's wrath after the fall of Starkiller Base by getting in touch with his true nature.Unfortunately.





	

Hux tapped his cigarette against the gold plated rim of the ashtray.  Smoking of any sort was strictly forbidden on board but Kylo supposed that no one would have the gumption to rat out the General himself.  Colonel Hux, he corrected himself internally.  The demotion meant little in terms of the day to day running of the Finalizer but everything when it came to Hux’s thoughts these days.  Kylo tried to slip in where he could go unnoticed, like a young _blim_ testing it’s fins in new waters, marking the world around it with care to avoid the path of predators.  

 

“Why are you doing that?” Hux asked, sounding bored.  

 

Some predators were unavoidable.

 

“Sorry,” Kylo muttered, casting a sheepish look at Hux who puffed again, his lips barely hugging the red filter as he exhaled through the nose.  It looked awful and Kylo turned away.

 

“I don’t like you rifling around in my head head like that and I’ve told you not to.  What’s so pressing that you’re willing to risk my ire?”

 

The words might have been mistaken for banter were it not for the deadly serious weight behind them.  Kylo swallowed and tried to think.  Though he loathed to admit it the former General terrified him.  Whatever had emerged from the other end of Snoke’s punishment-- one day on the surface and three on board during which no one had seen or heard from Hux until he emerged from his quarters as though nothing at all had happened-- was not the same man who had taken to bedding him with an almost charming punctuality prior to the destruction of Starkiller Base.  

 

That Hux had been single-minded in both duty and vice.  It wasn’t exactly companionship but it was pleasant.  Kylo could admit that now.  He’d looked forward to the somewhat mechanical sex and the hushed conversations between them that followed.  This Hux didn’t care for talking.

 

It had occurred to Kylo that the only reason he was permitted to share the bed now was that something about his presence had a calming effect on Hux’s demeanor.

 

_What did he do to you?_

 

If Kylo’s experience was anything to go by, the punishment was effective.  The more one dwelled on it the more effective it would be-- like wound to be picked at and bled again and again until it healed poorly, leaving an ugly scar.

 

Not unlike the one that novice girl had saddled him with.

 

“Do you know why you can’t please him, Ren?” Hux began, stabbing the cigarette out and turning to the knight with a look of such unguarded contempt that it chilled him.

 

“Are we talking about Snoke?”

 

“Who else would we be talking about?”

 

They gazed at one another in the dim light that pooled around the bed in an arc from the overhead lamp.  Between the low light and the permanently shuttered windows it felt like a vault.  Like Hux had entombed them together.  He pushed back the covers as a shudder overtook him

 

“Did he tell you that?”  The voice that escaped him sounded small even to his own ears.

 

“He didn’t have to.  I know what happened with that scavenger girl.  And do you know why?”

 

A bitter smile touched Hux’s lips before vanishing.

 

“Because Ben Solo is still rattling around in there.”  He punctuated his words with the careless stab of a finger against Kylo’s chest.  “The young _jedi_ , living for the approval of the dead.  Pathetic.”

 

“I killed my father,” Kylo muttered, wanting to scream it but too startled by this bold change of course to do anything but dig his fingers into the sheets and fight back the urge to…

 

He blinked back tears.  No.  Not like this.  Not in front of Hux, but especially not in front of this Hux.

 

Sex had weakened him.  The Supreme Leader had warned him and he hadn’t listened.

 

_Pathetic._

 

“Snoke showed me what he couldn’t show you.  He let me fuck you so that I could teach you what he couldn’t.  Don’t look at me like that, you and I both know that nothing can be kept secret from such a powerful force user.”

 

If his ‘saber had been in the room he would have reached for it.  Training be damned, he would have brought the hissing blade to Hux’s throat and demanded an explanation.  Instead he sat in shock like the -- _pathetic_ \-- failed disciple he was.  He permitted Hux to embrace him then, slipping arms devoid of warmth or familiarity around his body.  Cold eyes drew him in like a tractor beam.

 

“If I open my mind you can experience what I experience, can’t you?”

 

“No,” Kylo lied, if only to stave off the sudden rush of panic at the unexpected direction the conversation had taken.  He could no more exit that horrible bedroom than he could slay Hux where he sat.   

 

Though he longed to do both.

 

“Come inside,” Hux taunted.  “Come inside, Kylo Ren.”

 

The mere possibility that this might be a command from Snoke himself drew him to open the link, a door thrown open to the rigid order of Hux’s innermost thoughts.  It bore no resemblance to the minds that fought against his intrusion.  Colonel Hux had nothing to hide.  Kylo could have taken each delicate sculpture of a memory and studied it at all angles and Hux would not stop him.

 

Snoke had been here before him.  Even as Kylo cringed at the taste of his Master in Hux’s thoughts he saw how Snoke had battered down all resistance and damaged more than a few memory sculptures in the process.

 

“Hux,” he said, voice cracking, wanting to reach out cradle the remains of those memories.  Most of them involved Kylo.

 

_Come inside._

 

A spot where nothing grew and no fragile memoryscapes dared intrude.  A black halo around a thing devoid of any comparison to color that Kylo’s own mind could dredge up.  

 

_He showed me.  He showed me what I am._

 

Snoke had not touched this… void.  Had not even approached this cold place.

 

_I want to show you.  You could have this too.  We could have it together._

 

“What did he do to you?” Kylo heard himself say, far away, like a voice beneath the surface of a lake.

 

And then he understood.  Snoke hadn’t manipulated this place or meddled with it in any way.  This purity of Hux’s mind that belonged to him alone had saved him; redeemed him in Snoke’s eyes.

 

He looked into the dark and saw his own reflection.  He touched it.

 

**

 

“Ren.”

 

He woke with a startled cry at the sound of his name and gradually remembered his surroundings.  The tinge of smoke in the air.  The windowless walls.  The man in bed with him.

 

“All Snoke did was take away the things inside that kept me from getting in touch with myself.  You understand that, don’t you?  And now you’ll know that peace too.”  Hux smiled down at him and there was no life it.

 

But he didn’t shy away.  Because he didn’t feel afraid.

 

He didn’t feel anything at all.

 

**Author's Note:**

> The inspiration for this story came from a quote from Night Watch (Ночной дозор)
> 
> "...it is easier to kill the light within oneself, than to scatter the darkness around."


End file.
